


Children

by Isaac_Wolfe_Grisham



Category: RWBY
Genre: Depression, Mentions of Suicide, Mentions of past abuse, Post-Volume 3 (RWBY), Spoilers for RWBY, Spoilers for Volumes 1-3, Weiss' past is explored
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-11-10
Packaged: 2018-08-24 07:08:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8362330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isaac_Wolfe_Grisham/pseuds/Isaac_Wolfe_Grisham
Summary: Team RWBY is split. Yang is home, Weiss is in hell, Blake is missing, and Ruby seeks to bring them together once more.
A work in progress.





	1. Chapter 1

_They were children._

That was their only excuse when they were questioned later, inquired after, asked why they had partaken in something so particularly dangerous. Why they pursued being huntresses, night hunters, eventually pulled into shadow by what was seen as a job.

_They were inexperienced with the world._

They all had their own reasons. Faunus rights. Thrills. Duty. 

To protect.

Ruby, the hopeful, stories of heroes fighting monsters in her head as she slayed monsters that plagued humanity. Not in it for the glory, or the money, but because she wanted to protect those she loved.

Weiss, the heiress, seemingly entitled, heart encased in ice. Melted by love she never knew she needed, and then didn't realize she had until it was gone.

Blake, the tireless activist, brought down at the hands of her nightmare, a child in soul and heart, but an adult in mind. 

They were children, seeing the world in different ways, but nonetheless in an ideal light. They looked through rose-colored glasses, held up by their leader, hopeful, kind, woefully innocent to wrongdoing. Those views being knocked aside and being replaced with charcoal and ash, cinder, blood raining from the night sky as their school, the home they'd built up, fell apart. The tower fell.

Beacon fell.

They split. Their innocence gone, or whatever was left of it. Yang faced her own demons, her ghosts, the phantom pains that haunted her sleep and waking hours. 

Blake ran, and found family.

Weiss went back to the family she knew better than to want to be a part of, forced back into the icy hell she had endured.

Ruby sought to bring them all together once more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A look at Weiss.

As she sings, she looks to the crowd.

People assembled, for her, strangely familiar. A sense of déjà vu falls on her shoulders, tightens around her as she relives what she hoped to forget.

Soft plinks, notes, piano keys hitting strings and forming music. Myrtenaster at her side, nascent and missing now, a dream once chased, then forgotten. A voice, her own, but not, a specter that haunts her. 

A mirror. Inspiration. Music that once was an escape now plagues her, stray thoughts reminding her that she was back in the place she sought to defy. Leave. Abscond. Elope from.

Useless words. She wants nothing more than to leave, to escape the ever-watching eye of her father, to help repair the damages already being done. 

_I tried so hard, Blake._

The string of lyrics come more potent, voice filling and spreading, boiling over as she pours her heart into her song. She puts the heart she has to hide into her voice. She hopes they can hear her.

_I tried so hard to help you, to help the other faunus. I was wrong. I was so wrong in how I treated you. How I thought of you when you shared a secret you knew I would react badly to._

She can't name the feelings, the emotions, in her words, her echoes, the slow train of her thoughts as she breaks from her planned performance, composing a song for herself. For them. 

_I tried, Blake, I tried so hard._ _I'm sorry._

The crowd doesn't seem to care. They're mesmerized by her impromptu change, the hidden composition that's not on the bill. They're drawn to the Ice Queen that dazzles them, but they know not what they see.

The show ends. It always does. 

They all go back to their lives, their families, children that wonder about what the Schnee heiress was like.

Weiss goes back to her room, to hole up under the guise of rest. She wants no company, only solitude.

She wants Blake. She wants Ruby. She wants Yang. 

She wants her team. Her family.

She is a contradiction, if you cared to look. Solitary but craving company, but when company is offered, she brushes it off in her need to be alone. 

In truth, she does not want royal company, or company of the rich, or those in power. 

She merely wants her team. Nobody else.

She thinks of death in a world without them.

She hides. She requests firearms to practice, dust to use in battle, for self-defense when meeting ambassadors and missionaries. She stockpiles what she doesn't use, in a hidden box under lock and key. She deliberates, contemplates, spends hours at her window while she looks out at the night sky, the stars blinking wearily at her in return to her bleary-eyed stare. 

Wonders if Blake can hear her. Her sorrow, her guilt, her apology.

She sings, sadness tinging her words a dull gray instead of a sheer lace white. Her mind turns black, dyeing her thoughts a myriad of shades. 

She forms the stockpiled dust into munitions. Makes it usable in a pilfered pistol. Loads the shot, puts in under her chin.

Wonders if her team will ever know. If anyone will tell them.

She steels her hand and her resolve.

Shadows come to mind. A hand here, an ear there. Taking on something reminiscent of a girl. 

The hand, reaching out, stops her. Makes her hesitate. Gently eases the gun out of her grasp, salt water on her face, tears, as she looks upon the face of the one she has mocked and scorned vicariously. She looks at the bow, worn and tattered, threadbare, intact. Lips forming lovingly around words she had no reason to hear.

She did not deserve to hear them.

_I forgive you_ comes from the shadows.

Her hand slips, and a resounding shot echoes across her room. 

She lets the darkness swallow her, arms wrapped in night embracing her. Stars in amber eyes the color of sunsets, gazing with horror as she watches light fade from snow and blue skies. Calloused hands running through her hair. 

The last thing she hears is a voice, hoarse with sorrow, calling for help. Calling for her.

_Weiss!_


	3. Chapter 3

When Weiss woke, she expected brimstone and fire. She expected flames licking at her heels and demons grabbing at her ankles. 

She did not expect artificial lighting to assault her eyes from above, or the sharp scent of anti-septic to ravage her nose. Her body is unresponsive, but there. She did not become an ether or spirit, or go to hell, as she had hoped. Instead, she had been saved by a slip of a shadow that had disappeared as she looked on at a world she was desperate not to be a part of.

When she attempted movement, a sharp pain in her skull quickly discouraged her from any sort of extraneous activity. Something coarse was over her right eye, and she realized it was a bandage. 

A shock in her ear told her someone was talking, or shouting- She couldn't tell, anyway. All she knew was that it hurt. 

She let her consciousness fade once more as a man in a white coat rushed into the room, followed by scrub-clad persons with kindly faces. 

\--------

When she woke once more, it was darker. Shadows were longer, the lights had been shut off, and there was less pain in her head. Someone must have given her a painkiller or something of that ilk.

She still could not bring herself to open her eyes- Or, at least the one that worked. She had discovered, in a minute of lucidity, that her right eye had been damaged beyond repair and was no longer functional. Thus, it was covered, both for her own safety and to prevent any more injury.

In truth, she was afraid. She was afraid that, with her actions, she had condemned her teammate to an unsure fate. To a life of depravity, due to the fact that the situation could easily be misread. Blake could be confused as her assailant, and due to their faunus status, that could easily be believed.  
When the nurses came to check on her (and they were indeed nurses), she pretended to be asleep, but given that they were medical professionals, they knew that she was awake. She thanked the gods that they were kind enough to do their job and then leave her be.

Her anxiety ate her alive as she wondered about Blake's fate.

\--------

Of course, when visiting hours came, and she had recovered enough to have one, she did not expect her father. She knew he had better things to do than come worry over her. She had long since stopped believing he cared the least bit about her.

So when the nurse she had come to know as Mary had announced she had a visitor, she expected a well-wisher that had come for a minute of comfort or solace. She did not expect her poised and suited father, as ridiculously and unbelievably perfect as ever. 

It seemed the unexpected had become the expected these past few days.

As he took a seat in a chair by her bedside, she refused to be a starter of conversation, instead sticking to an old doctrine: Speak only when spoken to. 

"How are you feeling, Weiss?" Her father asked, ice lacing his words. But that was the norm, wasn't it? That's where she had picked up on her cold demeanor, after all.

"I'm fine," was her only answer. She did not say anything else.

"I see that the doctors here have done a fine job taking care of you, seeing as you're lucid and speaking." A glance towards the door spoke volumes of his actual opinion, which was the complete opposite of his words.

"They are quite kind."

"I have already arranged for a prosthetic for your damaged eye, unless you wish to bear the scars of your...mistake." He said the word with distaste, the word sitting on his tongue like a rotten piece of food he wasn't expecting. Poison.

"I'd rather bear the scar than have a product of ill-gotten wealth." Was her clipped response. It was true- She didn't want a Schnee product, even if it were to curb a disability. It seemed backwards, of course, the heiress not using said wealth to better herself or her health; but what about her had ever been forward?

"I see." His tone betrayed no further information, though a sound akin to disgust left his throat. He straightened his tie slightly (although she could see nothing wrong with it), and continued. "I have a meeting to attend. I was only stopping by to make sure you were receiving proper care. I will stop by later."

With that, he got up to leave. He did not depart without dropping a piece of information, however. One meant to rile her thoughts and already-frayed nerves.

"Weiss, that faunus we found with you has been taken into police custody for questioning." Weiss opened her mouth to speak, but a raised hand to told her to wait. "She has been refusing to talk, other than to tell what she knew, which was little. She only wanted to know if you were alright. Of course, we didn't say a word- She's a _faunus_ -" He spat the word like a curse, "She doesn't deserve to know a Schnee-"

 _"Shut up."_ Her tone bordered on rage, a fire raging under the surface that was yearning to break out and snap his privileged neck. She rarely felt this way- And when she did, it was built up over many incidences- but again, it seemed abnormal was quickly becoming the norm for her.

"What was that?"

"I said _shut up!_ You don't know them!" Weiss tried for menacing, but she knew her father was unshakable in his bigoted beliefs- it would take more than fear or intimidation to change him, if he could even be changed. She knew she looked like nothing but a petulant child to him. 

"Weiss-"

"No! _Their_ name is Blake! And just because they're a faunus doesn't mean they're not a good person with good intentions!" Weiss voice was echoing throughout the room with how loud she was being, voice cracking under the weight of her words. "They saved me! They tried to get the gun out of my hand and stop me! They had no intentions of hurting me, nor would they ever!"

_"That's enough-"_

"Blake is my friend! I don't care what you think about faunus, I care-"

A slap resounded across the white walls of the hospital room, Weiss' head thrown to the side by the force of it and the bandages jostled from their place around her skull. Pain shot through her head, and with a small whimper, she went silent.

"I will not hear another word from you about faunus being innocent or helpful. No daughter of mine will associate with monsters, or become insubordinate to her elders."

"I am going. Not a word of this leaves this room."

Weiss could only stay silent until the door shut, numbness spreading through her limbs.

\--------

Time in the hospital was lonely. That was one of the many words she could think of to describe it as. It passed at a snail's pace- She could glance at the clock once, and then again when it seemed enough had passed, only to find only a minute or two had ticked by.

It was frustrating. She was bedridden until further notice, seeing as the first time she had attempted to get up, she was hit with a wave of dizziness and nausea that had left her aching and retching long after she had laid back down.

Her father did visit again, only once, after the meeting he had left for. She refused to speak, but she learned that Blake had been released on the grounds that they had been proven innocent by Weiss' verbal account. 

Still, she did not respond to him. She only let herself feel the overwhelming relief at their release once he had left, tears of joy overflowing as she cried for her teammate.

She had a selfish desire to see them, but she knew they would never be allowed near the hospital. She could only hope, that once she was discharged, she could find them again.

\--------

Time, from then on, passed in a haze. It seemed to move more fluidly, days passing and her recovery sped by the fact that Blake was alive. 

She questioned the information's validity, why her father would even bother to deliver a verbal account unless it was to use it against her- But the news from her small, hospital-issued television set spoke of Blake's release, and even if her father meant to use it as a tool against her, he couldn't do so now without the public scorning him. Even in Atlas, people knew that they were all equal. The Fall of Beacon had taught them that.

\--------

On Monday, three days after her father's disastrous visit, she tried to walk again, with the help of one of the ever-present nurses. She managed a few steps before having to be lead back to her bed, breathing labored and a glass of water being held to her lips after she had caught her breath.

\--------

When Wednesday came around, she fared better. Armed with the knowledge of Blake's safety, she forced herself onward, managing her first meal in the cafeteria with grace, even with the IV in her arm and a drip bag being carted around with her.

\--------

Her recovery was speedy, even for a huntress with unlocked aura. The doctors were full of words of encouragement, genuine compliments with the intent of helping her along. A psychiatrist came to see her once a day to assess her and speak with her about her mental state. Once she had deemed him truthful in his cause, she had slowly opened up to him, telling him more than "I'm fine," or "I'm not in the mood to talk."

He was understanding of her worry about Blake, seeing as he was aware of the bond that teammates formed while training to become huntresses. He told her it was normal to be worried, to be scared for their safety- She cared about them. 

She eventually told him her worry for Ruby and Yang, as well, and his response was comforting. 

"I've worked with people who've lost limbs, aspiring hunters or huntresses, all of whom were good people- And the way you've described Yang, she seems like she's stronger than you know. She'll get through it. As for Ruby, she'll be okay- She may seem like a child, but seeing what she's seen...she'll be okay, too. Especially with her team looking out for her, even from afar."

She knew Yang was stronger than most. And that Ruby was not a child, as much as she acted like one or straddled innocence with grace. But she was still glad for the reassurance.

\--------

Friday came, and with it, permission to take the bandages wrapped around her skull off for good. It had healed enough to not be on constantly, and her stitches would be taken out as soon as it was deemed safe. 

It was a relief to have the constant scratching of the gauze gone, and when she blinked her left eye open after it was gone, it felt a bit...lopsided. Despite knowing her right eye wasn't functional, it still felt strange to not be able to completely see.

She was told she would get used to the feeling as her body adjusted.

She soon realized the only person she wanted to see was Blake.

\--------

It was a Thursday afternoon, two weeks after she had woken, that she was told she would be leaving the hospital on Monday. 

She could hardly stomach the news, as it was. Monday seemed too far away. She knew with certainty that once she out of the eyes of the public, or even the doctors, she would be chained down again. A prisoner in her own home, she thought with morbid amusement.

\--------

Her stitches were taken out on Friday, and the pinkish scars stood out brightly against her chopped white hair. She was reassured they would fade with time and become less noticeable, and surgery was an option if she wished for them to be covered.

She told them with a quiet confidence that she would rather bear them proudly.

\--------

The weekend, usually a time for recreation or, in Weiss' case, training, was spent watching the clock and inched along with all the speed of a worm in a desert. That is, not very quickly, as she waited impatiently for it to end and for her stay here to be over.

\--------

Monday was spent in a flurry of activity, her few belongings that she had accumulated being shoved into a backpack and paperwork being signed in a rush to get out of the stifling building. 

Time went back to being the frustrating mistress that it was, seconds ticking by with all the weight of an eternity.

She sighed in frustration as they insisted on using a wheelchair to get her out, but she understood their logic- They didn't want her to get even more hurt in the middle of her discharge by exerting herself too much and too quickly.

Of course, her father didn't come to get her. Instead, Klein, with legal permissions from her father, took care of it. She was grateful, of course- She would take Klein over her father any day- but it still felt strange to have him there.

\--------

As she was wheeled out the automatic doors, she took a deep breath, the cold, fresh air a stark but lovely contrast to the chemical-filled scent of the hospital. 

She thought she saw a loose shadow, an artist's background mistake, behind a pillar as she was helped into the car. When she looked back, it seemed a paintbrush had come down and painted over it. It was gone.

_Blake..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a while to get down, but I'm glad I'm finally done with this chapter. I encountered some difficulty writing it, seeing as I've had some traumatic experiences with many, many hospitals in my lifetime, but this chapter was a sort-of catharsis, I suppose. Facing my demons on the subject certainly helped, and I'm glad I was able to face them down while still doing what I love.
> 
> That being said, the news of Trump being elected has left me fearful of what's to come for me and fellow queer folk. I'm trans and grey-ace, a queer person through and through. 
> 
> If anyone at all reading this needs a listening ear or some comfort in these hard times, please, don't hesitate to contact me, either here on ao3 or on my tumblr at http://justanotherhomestuck.tumblr.com . My askbox and inbox are always open if anyone needs me.
> 
> Be safe, everyone. 
> 
> -Nico (Isaac_Wolfe_Grisham)


End file.
